Man makes up his mind he will preach, and he preaches.
The generality of men expend the early part of their lives in contributing to render the latter part miserable.
Rarely do they appear great before their valets. [Fr., Rarement ils sont grands vis-a-vis de leur valets-de-chambre.]
Some young people do not sufficiently understand the advantages of natural charms, and how much they would gain by trusting to them entirely. They weaken these gifts of heaven, so rare and fragile, by affected manners and an awkward imitation. Their tones and their gait are borrowed; they study their attitudes before the glass until they have lost all trace of natural manner, and, with all their pains, they please but little.
It is a proof of boorishness to confer a favor with a bad grace; it is the act of giving that is hard and painful. How little does a smile cost?
Favor exalts a man above his equals, but his dismissal from that favor places him below them.
To make a book is as much a trade as to make a clock; something more than intelligence is required to become an author.
What the people call eloquence is the facility some persons have of speaking alone and for a long time, aided by extravagant gestures, a loud voice, and powerful lungs.
A man often runs the risk of throwing away a witticism if he admits that it is his own.
We should like those whom we love to receive all their happiness, or, if this were impossible, all their unhappiness from our hands.
Among some people arrogance supplies the place of grandeur, inhumanity of decision, and roguery of intelligence.
Modesty is to merit, what shade is to figures in a picture; it gives it strength and makes it stand out.
We never deceive people to benefit them, for knavery is a compound of wickedness and falsehood.
The most accomplished literary work would be reduced to nothing by carping criticism, if the author would listen to all critics and allow every one to erase the passage which pleases him the least.
A coxcomb is the blockhead's man of merit.
The nearer we approach great men, the clearer we see that they are men.
The best way to get on in the world is to make people believe it's to their advantage to help you.
It is a great misfortune not to possess sufficient wit to speak well, nor sufficient judgment to keep silent.
Dissimulation, even the most innocent in its nature, is ever productive of embarrassment; whether the design is evil or not artifice is always dangerous and almost inevitably disgraceful.
Cunning is none of the best nor worst qualities; it floats between virtue and vice; there is scarce any exigence where it may not, and perhaps ought not to be supplied by prudence.
It is very rare to find ground which produces nothing; if it is not covered with flowers, with fruit trees and grains, it produces briers and pines. It is the same with man; if he is not virtuous, he becomes vicious.
All the world says of a coxcomb that he is a coxcomb; but no one dares to say so to his face, and he dies without knowing it.
The very impossibility which I find to prove that God is not, discovers to me his existence.
A woman with eyes only for one person, or with eyes always averted from him, creates exactly the same impression.
A man who is free and unmarried, if he has some intelligence, can rise above his fortune, mingle in society and meet the best people on an equal footing. This is harder for a married man: marriage, it seems, confines every man to his proper rank.
